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Massachusetts Library System has been selected by Hannaford Supermarket as the December beneficiary of the Hannaford Cause Program! The Hannaford Cause Bag program is designed to support local nonprofits through the sale of the reusable Hannaford Helps bag. Every time the reusable Hannaford Helps bag with the good karma message is purchased at Marlborough Hannaford during the month of December, MLS receives $1. We would greatly appreciate your support.

Where can you find an Interim Director, Circulation Clerk, Reference Librarian, Long-Range Planner, Children’s Librarian, Research and Instruction Librarian, Visual Resources Curator, Library Technician, Music Collection Cataloger, GIS Specialist, Cataloger, Archival Assistant, ILL Assistant and an Access Services Assistant? At BiblioTemps®, of course! We have successfully filled all these roles and more. We can help your library during staff paternal or medical leave, resignations, extra help during special projects or busy seasons. We have academic, public school and special library clients across the state. We can fill a role for a few weeks or find your next permanent staff member. BiblioTemps® is the Staffing Solution for Libraries. Call to find out more 508-357-2121 ext 322 or bibliotemps@masslibsystem.org.

The IDEAL program is well underway. We have had two informative sessions with engaged and excited participants. Read on to learn more about the sessions so far.

Session 1: Getting Comfortable with your Statewide Databases

In this session, Stacey Knibloe, Implementation and Training Consultant from Gale educated us on the wide range of Gale resources available. IDEAL participants spent significant time learning and understanding which resources to use when and for which particular audience. We also explored some of the new resources that are available to us such as the InfoTrac Newstandand Small Business Resource Center. An interesting tidbit everyone learned is that Biography in Context resources has a loose definition of biographies. We found werewolves and bank robbers as job occupations!

Session 2: Expanding the Reach of Your Statewide Databases

In our second session, participants delved into resources to explore some of the hidden gems of the Gale databases. The group uncovered letters to candidate Lincoln in U.S. History in Context and viewpoint essays in both World History in Context and Global Issues in Context. We also learned about Gale personas (like gardeners or small business owners) and discussed which resources would be most appealing to different groups of library users. Another interesting detail learned from this session is that there are science experiments in the Science in Context resource. This session was also lead by Stacey Knibloe.

In October and November, the Massachusetts Library System hosted four Public Library/Social Service Forums. The idea for the forums was initially generated by my interest to explore whether our members might be interested in hosting social work field placements at public libraries. To explore this idea, in August of 2017, we conducted a survey of public library directors and discovered that our membership is very interested to partner with social workers.

Public library directors were primarily interested to have a social worker onsite to:

Provide social services referrals

Lead staff development on topics like poverty, diversity, and social justice

Coordinate community awareness events on topics such as homelessness, diversity, and suicide prevention

Offer support for immigrants and citizenship.

The results of the survey revealed that this project should take a much broader scope and explore ways to foster not just social work partnerships, but social services partnerships.

What happened at the forums? The library/social services forums included a brief update of the results of the survey followed by plenty of time for members to discuss issues facing their library’s community, to share how they are responding, and identify ways to co-create solutions. Our members expressed concern about serving patrons who are experiencing homelessness, substance use disorders, and mental illness. Attendees also shared about wanting to better serve immigrants with literacy and citizenship services. Some members were concerned about hosting a social work field placement and were more interested in connecting with local agencies to get an experienced social worker on-site part-time. At the end of the forums, we had an ideation activity to brainstorm and co-create creative and innovative library/social services partnerships.

The Hatfield Public Library has been turning the routine chore of unpacking new materials into a communications tool. Unboxing videos have been a mainstay of the YouTube market for years, with hosts offering a running commentary of whatever is being unpacked. Staff of the Hatfield Public Library are creating videos showcasing new additions to the collection. This is a simple and effective way of sharing the materials, and the personality of a library, while simultaneously creating content for the library website and social media.